1) The right to ‘warren’ was the liberty granted to a landowner to hunt birds and animals on part of his estate.
1524 wilde bores, dere, heronsewies, shoulardes, fesandes, partriches as othre fowles and beistes of waraunt, Thorpe Underwood. These ‘reserves’ came to be known as warrens and they were watched over by warreners: 1519 that no man hawke nor hunte within my Lorde’s warraunte, Selby
1602 hedgeing the warren, Brandsby
1726 Francis Gibson of Rigton warrener of Hornbank Warren . From the Tudor period the word was more usually associated with the keeping of rabbits or coneys and the landlords’ privileges were under increasing threat. In 1498 Miles Willesthorp claimed that a body of armed men had come to the more of Willesthorp … and … there riotously hunted the conyes … and digged up the erthis. In 1599-1600, the cony warren within the lordship of Settrington was surveyed and a memorandum noted that in Anncient tyme the conye warren was planted in the low commons, but so many rabbits were poached that it was moved closer to the manor house. The Quarter Sessions records have details of poaching in such warrens into quite recent times and a warren or common called Coney Moor in Methley is mentioned in 1732. The houses occupied by the warreners are quite frequently referred to, and Warren House became a common minor place-name: 1654 paid for drawinge the thack and for theakinge of the Warrand House, 4s 6d, Stockeld. References which list improvements to Richard Cholmeley’s property illustrate the word’s attributive uses: 1612 a warren howse wall
1614 my warren yeat stowpes
finished my warren dyke burnynge, Brandsby. See GRMH169-71.